George Mason University - Antonin Scalia Law School, Faculty; The Green Bag

Date Written: January 28, 2013

Abstract

As The Bluebook says of itself, “For generations . . . legal professionals have relied on the Bluebook’s unique system of citation. In a diverse and rapidly changing legal profession, the Bluebook continues to provide a systematic method by which members of the profession communicate important information about the sources and authorities upon which they rely in their work.” Generally speaking, this is true and probably always will be, so long as the Bluebook keeps pace with that changing profession. One big change is the technical side of online research services: Westlaw and its competitors cannot afford to conform to the Bluebook’s system when it conflicts with the requirements of their databases for, among other things, unique and recognizable abbreviations of the names of publications. And given a choice between following Bluebook form and following Westlaw form, readers and publishers are likely to follow Westlaw because that is where readers are doing more of their reading and publishers’ products are getting read. The microcosmic experiences of the Green Bag and the Journal of Law may be a sign of things to come, or even of something that has already arrived.

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